I don't know man. I can't get to some sex and intimacy issues I have. How long does it usually take for change to be noticeable ? After all I've done around all this inner work and these 2 days trying to trigger/allow, I feel hardly even a little bit closer.
Also, why inquire if the thing has been allowed fully ? I thought that's only thing you have to do and the thing will solve itself or something.
I can't even imagine allowing and inquiring at the same time lol
My biggest problem is, that when I don't think about things so much, I can actually do a lot in all areas in life (When people are around, it defocuses my mind from self-analyzing, so that's why I'm better wiht people around) - Problem is when I think k about stuff, then I shut down immeadetelly.

Altho, I have been succesfull with releasing some very dark, opressive and depressive thoughts/beliefs/emotions/whothehellknows with inquiry ONLY so... I will try that a lot now, with focus.. Which is pretty damn hardest thing for me, to focus my thoughts and emotions

these 2 days trying to trigger/allow, I feel hardly even a little bit closer.

fufe wrote:

the thing will solve itself

Thats not what allowing is about. Its not about solving anything, or about bringing about a certain specific change or outcome that you think is supposed to happen. Its NOT goal directed.

If you're trying to get rid of something, if you don't accept some part of yourself, if you're pushing away a piece of you, then you are definitely not allowing. When you say things like "I hardly feel closer" or "how long will it take to change things" then you are automatically dis-allowing.

Like Flow says, allowing is stepping into the experience 100% with no story, no labels, no judgements, no criticisms, no wanting things to be different than they are, no resistance.

fufe wrote:

Also, why inquire if the thing has been allowed fully ? I thought that's only thing you have to do and the thing will solve itself or something.
I can't even imagine allowing and inquiring at the same time

I never said anything about allowing and inquiring at the same time, and I would not suggest trying to do that. Its get triggered, allow, and then inquire.

The inquiring is useful because it can often help you uncover deeper things that also trigger you. So maybe you have a bad experience with a girl that triggers you, then you sit with the feelings and welcome them fully and allow them, and once you feel at peace with the negative feelings, then you can ask yourself why that particular interaction triggered you the way it did. Maybe you inquire on it, and you realize that you have some deeper issues with the way your mom treated you growing up, and just doing the inquiry triggers some of those emotions about your childhood and your mom. Then you can allow those emotions too, and you can continue to inquire deeper. The inquiry allows you to investigate things deeper and deeper and get to more fundamental and pervasive issues faster.

_________________"The society gives you a map; I give you only freedom. The society gives you character, I give you only consciousness. The society teaches you to live a conformist life ... I give you an invitation to go on an adventure." - Osho

Fufe, it's not mandatory to inquire. It's a pointer. Allowing whatever it is that arises is sufficient. You don't need to understand it unless you really want to. Allowing has the effect of diminishing the pattern of whatever it is.

Fufe, it's not mandatory to inquire. It's a pointer. Allowing whatever it is that arises is sufficient. You don't need to understand it unless you really want to. Allowing has the effect of diminishing the pattern of whatever it is.

For some inquiring can become another mind trick. It's up to you.

If you fully allow the inquiring takes care of itself.

However for some people it helps to understand the three 'wants' and to take it over there

_________________"a sniper is the worst romancer, he never makes the first move"“Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive” \ Robert M. Pirsig

"A stone beneath the surface of the ground is just as heavy as a visible one."

Stunningly Beautiful quote Jared

_________________In building a statue, a sculptor doesn't keep adding clay to his subject.He keeps chiseling away at the inessentials until the truth of its creation is revealed without obstructions. Perfection is not when there is no more to add,but no more to take away.

That isn't what I'm saying sniper. As I wrote, It's not a requisite to understand why or what. Allowing eases the burden of the mind, and for some just doing that is sufficient to release whatever it is. The mind has a habit of making a story out of everything. If you want to inquire further do so, but if you're resisting it then move on.

From my pov, trying to understand why often, but not always, comes from the idea of a self - a self which was never real anyway.

It's important to know that "inquiry"has a specific connotation and history in a lot of these contexts. The free book way of liberation by adyashanti has a great description and it is a type of practice such as self inquiry in the style of Ramana Maharshi and others.

"Inquire" in those contexts has nothing to do with trying to understand things, know the reasons behind them and so on. For most people the desire to know "why" is one of the biggest blocks to letting things go or experience them directly.

Because the same word is used for both things, I am just putting that out there so that when you see people talk about "doing inquiry"it could be either or, and in some ways they are radically different, even though both take a posture of questioning.

What Leo said is one of the most important things though, that knowing why is not necessary for things to resolve. However, exploring, digging in noticing patterns and such is 'inquiry' that is very different than pondering 'why does this keep happening' on an intellectual level.

Also, whether you get a big insight or not, whether the energy dissipates or hangs around, whether you feel 'happy' or not, none of these are indicators of you having done anything correctly or incorrectly. It is an internal posture, it is self verifying, not result oriented.

That isn't what I'm saying sniper. As I wrote, It's not a requisite to understand why or what. Allowing eases the burden of the mind, and for some just doing that is sufficient to release whatever it is. The mind has a habit of making a story out of everything. If you want to inquire further do so, but if you're resisting it then move on.

From my pov, trying to understand why often, but not always, comes from the idea of a self - a self which was never real anyway.

Inquiring isn't necessarily 'to understand', but one can get caught in the trap nonetheless. If you're getting caught in the mind about it, move on for now.

From my pov, trying to understand why often, but not always, comes from the idea of a self - a self which was never real anyway.

Inquiring isn't necessarily 'to understand', but one can get caught in the trap nonetheless. If you're getting caught in the mind about it, move on for now.

Amen to that.

Allowing is total yin, inquiry is much more yang, you are beyond both and have the freedom to move back and forth. This includes the freedom to move between total emptiness, and fully being a human male who likes eating and getting laid. The goal is always to have access to the full range without getting stuck in any one place.

Yes. Inquiry is often misunderstood I think. Its easy to think that inquiry is about asking surface-level questions like, "why do I feel jealous when my when I see my friend Joe and his hot girlfriend hanging out together." There are so many assumptions in that surface-level question. If you are doing deep inquiry, you will question all the assumptions you have and not just look for a surface-level answer to your surface-level question. So you might move from that surface-level question down to the next level where you would ask questions like, "do I actually feel jealous when I see joe and his hot girlfriend together?" "Is this feeling that I get actually jealousy?" "What is jealousy?" "Can I describe this feeling without using the word 'jealousy'?" And on and on down. You don't really need to necessarily get an answer to any of these questions. It is simply the act of pondering and asking the question and listening for a response that is often quite helpful, and the longer you hold the stance of ruthless questioning that inquiry demands, the further down you will get, closer and closer to the really deep core questions.

Also, here's a nice quote from the Adyashanti book that Flow just mentioned:

Adyashanti wrote:

To hold a question inwardly in silent and patient waiting is an art rarely mastered these days. Inquiry is a bridge between the ego and the soul, and beyond to the Infinite. (I am using the term soul here to mean the essence, presence, or beingness that you are.)

Inquiry is not in any sense anti-intellectual or anti-rational; it is trans-rational. That is, it has the power to take you beyond both the conceptual mind as well as conditioned egocentric thinking. Although rooted in stillness, inquiry is the dynamic counterpoint to True Meditation. Meditation is soft, allowing surrender, while inquiry demands bold and fearless questioning.

Inquiry is a way of addressing the deepest existential issues confronting every human being: Who or what am I? What is life? What happens after death? What is God? What is the absolute Truth of existence? Or simply, Do I know with absolute certainty that this current thought, belief, opinion, interpretation, or judgment is true?

The common element to inquiry is Truth. What is Truth?

The Truth question does not arise from, or pertain to, the various agendas of the ego. It is of the utmost importance that inquiry not become subject to the ego’s various drives and motivations. The underlying drives of the ego are to feel better and to survive. But inquiry belongs entirely to the realm of the soul, that dimension of being born of stillness and light that seeks Truth for its own sake.

_________________"The society gives you a map; I give you only freedom. The society gives you character, I give you only consciousness. The society teaches you to live a conformist life ... I give you an invitation to go on an adventure." - Osho

Trace the thread of inquiry silently and patiently back through all of your identifications, all of your beliefs about yourself, all of your hidden judgments and assumptions about who and what you are. Take your time. Look deeply into each of these questions. Let the questions remove all that you are not. Let them undo all that you ever imagined yourself to be, all that you thought you should be, all that anyone ever told you to be. Trace the thread of inquiry back through all of your imagined identities. Follow the thread back through all that is imagined, clung to, or run from. Then be still. Rest in the contemplative silence and let the unknown workings of grace run their course.

The realization of Truth and Reality can never be created by the mind; it always comes as a gift of grace. Inquiry clears away misperceptions and illusions, making one available to the movements of grace.

The question of being opens the doorway to Reality and Truth, but is by no means the only question for inquiry. Question everything! Leave no stone unturned, no assumption unexamined, no form of denial left intact.

Investigate each question slowly and deliberately. Place each question into the stillness of your being. Do not grasp for quick answers. Don’t jump to conclusions. Instead, let each question reveal your hidden beliefs and opinions. Let it reveal whatever you are holding on to and believing that is at odds with what is. Look for all the ways that attaching to your mind causes you and others to suffer. Bring each question the mind poses into the ground of stillness. Meditate on it, ponder it; take your time. Don’t answer it with your mind. Be still with only the question. Be very, very still.

Filled with the love of Truth, don’t be surprised if inquiry begins to consume all of your hidden assumptions, all of your beliefs, all of your opinions, all of your judgments, all that you have learned secondhand from others. And don’t be surprised if most of your spiritual ideas are consumed as well, for it is our spiritual ideas that most effectively protect us from the truly spiritual experience.

There are two aspects of inquiry, and it’s very important to understand both of them. The first aspect of inquiry is what I call “taking the backward step.” The purpose of the first aspect of inquiry is to remove or step back from prior conditioned thinking. You are not looking for answers as much as you are revealing and removing prior conditioned thoughts, ideas, and beliefs to make way for a deeper realization. For example, through such observation you can come to see that you are not the thoughts in your mind. By removing the false belief that any thought can tell you what you are, you make space for a deeper understanding to reveal itself.

Having revealed and cleared out the false ideas of mind, you are now ready to rest in the stillness of being.

In the second aspect of inquiry, you are endeavoring to access the intuitive clarity and wisdom that is housed in stillness at the root of consciousness. I call it the realm of grace because the wisdom that flows out of it is always received as a gift, as an “aha” of pure understanding. Having revealed and cleared out the false ideas of mind, you are now ready to rest in the stillness of being, without imposing thought or seeking in thought.

_________________"The society gives you a map; I give you only freedom. The society gives you character, I give you only consciousness. The society teaches you to live a conformist life ... I give you an invitation to go on an adventure." - Osho

I can attest to what you two mention and I believe it might be of some value to fufe, because fufe at times I find myself in similar situations that you describe and write about; not like the bday one though.

Allowing is a new practice to me. Before I believed if I allowed, then the thing I was allowing would persist. "But, I did not want to allow my neediness or low self-esteem. I want it to go away". So, I resisted it.

In the time I did so, I like to think of it as posturing. I never allowed my neediness to come to the surface. I postured that I was confident and strong. However, it would slip out when something was triggered. I started to posture to everyone, and soon I even postured to myself. I became good at posturing, if not great!

I lost touch with myself and my feelings. Things got buried away.

Sexual encounters I had, had little enjoyment. Remember, I was posturing. I was to busy posturing to enjoy any of it happening in front of me. I feared that if I dropped my posture, then everything would come out and my hidden secret would be revealed...that I was sad, lonely, and depressed.

After posturing for so long, my energy was depleted and my life was a mess.

I started to allow recently and can understand when some say, "it will get worst before it gets better". I'm experiencing things now. I like to word it as "showing up". I show up to my inner-work sessions be it whatever I am doing in the moment. Flow put it beautifully with knowledge and experience. At some point knowledge can begin to harm you, because you will begin to feel you need to "read more, study more" before doing whatever you planned to do in the first place (hamster-wheel).

There can be more said from me, but I don't think it needs to be said.

"A stone beneath the surface of the ground is just as heavy as a visible one."

Stunningly Beautiful quote Jared

+1

+1.

No comment on the thread, tldr.

_________________By searching first and posting questions only if you find no answers, everyone will be much happier
No matter HOW smart you think you ARE, there will ALWAYS be somebody who is smarter than you. So never underestimate people.

I'll bump this and add to it an experience I had today. I was actually going through some archived posts here this morning/today before I went to sleep. I often sleep at all different hours and today I didn't go to sleep until around 3pm. I found myself reading this exact thread when a massive trigger for me came into my awareness. In my apartment building, there was a couple fighting with their window open. All of the inside apartments face a fairly small/tight courtyard area in a tall building so noise carries quite well throughout the courtyard. I didn't even have my windows open and I could hear this girl yelling, her voice and tone was loud and screeching, the emotion was heavy and piercing. This went on for a couple of hours and at first I was kind of unconsciously shutting it out and ignoring it(immersed in reading and pretending it didn't bother me, meanwhile the emotions are heavily building up the entire time). As it got closer to me wanting to sleep and it continued with breaks in the fighting so as for me to believe that perhaps it had stopped, I found myself at my window, yelling out for them to close theirs....they didn't. I was getting annoyed and frustrated and finally just made a decision to take this as an opportunity to do some inner work as I was already worked up from it.

I laid down in bed ready to sleep but also ready for the fighting to continue, they didn't disappoint but it wasn't as consistent now. I heard her screaming some and I could feel the emotions washing through me, they felt uncomfortable but I accepted that they were there. The whole thing reminded me of some of the fights my parents would have once they made a decision to get a divorce and then continued living together for money reasons for some time after. They would get into these blowout screaming matches that was moreso my mom screaming at my dad and they would last for sometimes a couple hours. I didn't exactly forget about this but I definitely had placed it into my unconscious awareness as I rarely ever consciously think about it anymore. It brought me back to that time when I was a kid when I would be in bed trying to sleep and hear my parents arguing. I now found myself in this exact same situation recreated. The feelings and frustrations that it initially brought up were the same but I am so much more evolved now that I quickly was taking a new approach to dealing with it. I found myself during one of their breaks in screaming, thinking to myself....is that it, is that all, cmon, bring on more if that's all it is...while laughing to myself. While I wouldn't choose to keep a woman like that around me today, in the past I have, however this guy apparently needed it in his life to reflect something back to him so I chose to see the relevance of the situation for not only him but also for myself. I realized I could handle whatever yelling or emotions a woman can throw at me without lashing back out at her emotionally or destroying something which used to be my go to response as a teenager. I would fight with my mom and I would get very emotionally heated and since I felt as though I would want to hit her but knew I couldn't, I would put my fist through a door or a wall. This was a repeating cycle in my teenage years and even some into my twenties. The last time it actually occurred was a few years ago in meditation I had an intense wave of anger come over me, I immediately jumped out of bed and unconsciously/reactively put my fist through my bedroom door which was instantly followed by a full body engulfing of pure calmness and peace, it was quite surreal actually.

Something I also realized too was that the emotions I was feeling, the discomfort of it all once I made the decision to accept and allow whatever was transpiring, wasn't really me holding onto or sitting in any of these emotions today so much as it was just a very quick flash of emotion. Like watching a scary movie and getting to the part where something jumps out and scares you and then it quickly passes. It was just a trigger to my root chakra/sense of security but then my body would immediately realize everything was OK and the emotion would just wash through me. It was really when I took the internal posture of asking for more of the fighting, give me everything you have, and laughing at the lack of substance behind it, that this transition took place and soon enough I just drifted off to sleep and have no idea if the fighting continued.

This is a really great thread full of useful information and it was very helpful to have read it this morning as I was going through a highly emotional state that I was initially resisting and trying to figure out how I could externally take control of and end, rather than using it as an opportunity to change my perspective of it and allow it to be what it was, which was a part of my reality today and in my past. Today I was strong enough to allow it and heal it where in my past I wasn't. This thread helped me to consciously realize that today and take the opportunity to allow and heal rather than resist and repress....I'm glad it left me with an experience I could share with everyone and hopefully help others to come to the same place.

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